From Kabul: Post-Election Crisis

For Immediate Release

From Kabul: Post-Election Crisis

WASHINGTON - Currently in Afghanistan's capital, these three commentators are available for a limited number of interviews from Kabul before Tuesday. (Phone calls from U.S. to Kabul, which is 8.5 hours ahead of U.S. ET, may require multiple tries.) They can also be contacted to arrange interviews from the United States beginning on Thursday.

REESE ERLICH
Erlich is an award-winning freelance reporter now on assignment in Kabul. He said today: "The Afghan elections were more aimed at improving the country’s image among North Americans and Europeans than at promoting democracy in Afghanistan. Afghans turned out in very low numbers, and the process revealed massive fraud. The U.S. government is now scrambling to put the best possible face on a process that shows the U.S. is losing militarily and politically in Afghanistan."
Erlich's books include Dateline Havana and The Iran Agenda.

NORMAN SOLOMONSolomon is the author of "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." He said today: "It's more evident from talking with well-informed people in Kabul than from reading the U.S. press that the wheels are gradually coming off the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan. The response from Washington seems to be to tweak and redouble doomed efforts while escalating the military violence. In painful contrast, rhetoric aside, the expenditures for humanitarian assistance and development aid are comparatively paltry -- in a country with horrific poverty." Solomon is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

RICK REYES
After enlisting in the Marine Corps, Reyes served as an infantry rifleman. He was deployed in "Operation Enduring Freedom" (Afghanistan) 2001 and then “Operation Iraqi Freedom” (Iraq) 2003. In 2008 he got involved in the Brave New Foundation's Rethink Afghanistan project and testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Video of that testimony is here.

Reyes is a co-founding member of Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan.

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Further

Lord, what would John Lennon have made of the Trump monster? Marking Thursday's 36th anniversary of Lennon's murder, Yoko Ono posted a plea for gun control, calling his death "a hollowing experience" and pleading, "Together, let's bring back America, the green land of Peace." With so many seeking solace in these ugly times, mourns one fan, "Oh John, you really should be here." Lennon conceded then, and likely would now, "Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."